


La Bête Noire

by Aphoride



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alchemy, Alcohol, Backwards Timeline, Canonical Character Death, Community: HPFT, F/M, Immortality, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Requited Unrequited Love, Secrets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-06-08 04:41:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6839446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aphoride/pseuds/Aphoride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Immortality is as much ambrosia as it is poison: it is selfish, egotistical and all-consuming.</p>
<p>We fell; or rather, one fell - the other was already at the bottom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. quand l’étérnité finit.

quand l’étérnité finit.  
  
It is to be now; they both know it – even as they sit, sip their tea and chat (though it could not be called idle; nothing either of them does it ever truly idle), time ticks down around them, the last grains of sand trickling through the waist of the hourglass – but yet, there is a sense of calm acceptance about the room, a fond goodbye hanging in the air, as though one of them is merely about to get on a train, as though one of them will return in two weeks.  
  
(One of them will; the other one will not.)  
  
Nonetheless, they take their time; they have seen enough things, enough days and months and years, that there is no hurry to do anything, to say anything.  
  
They have been friends a long time, after all, and conversations, for them, are almost things of the past. Mementos of another time, when one was young and the other was perhaps less old – as much to be cherished as any other memory, as any other thing which contains secrets, truths whispered across the wind where no one else can hear.  
  
Things half guessed at; things presumed, assumed, concluded – for they rarely say them out loud, in so many words.  
  
Where would be the fun in that?  
  
With a sigh, a mug is placed to one side, a thin, smooth hand folds back on top of the blankets, and the man in the bed – unlined, unmarked, looking nothing more than simply tired – smiles at his companion.  
  
“Eh bien, it is here, no? The Reaper comes for me – I should not keep him waiting too long,” Nicolas comments lightly, his voice clear, far too clear for a man about to die.  
  
“No indeed,” Albus agrees gravely, blue eyes dull, the yellow powder mug in his hands still half-full of tea. It is lukewarm now – barely even that. He suspects he will not drink it; the sink will greet it soon enough. “It would be most rude given how you have inconvenienced him for so long.”  
  
“Come now, Albus,” Nicolas sighs, frowning at his friend. “You are much too serious. I am dying, oui, but must you look as though you are at my funeral already? It is too much to bear at this stage.”  
  
Averting his eyes, Albus places his mug neatly on top of a wicker mat so as not to scald the table (though, he thinks afterwards, what was the point? The possessions of a dead man have no need of care – there is no one alive to love them, no one to inherit from affection, filial or otherwise. Habit, purely habit…), and replies, his tone decidedly bland,  
  
“My apologies, Nicolas, though I must admit it is somewhat difficult to be quite as cheerful as you are when sitting by the bedside of a friend about to die.”  
  
There a moment of silence – a butterfly lands on the windowsill, white lace curtains fluttering in the breeze – and then Nicolas laughs. It is a small sound: quiet and understated, much like its owner in ways, but it fills the room now, burying itself right into every corner and every hole in the plaster walls, and locking itself away inside Albus Dumbledore’s head.  
  
“As always, mon ami, you are right – but come, I am the one dying, non? Permit me this one last indulgence,” he tries to smile, but merely looks pained. Across the room, in the armchair, Albus nods, a silent sigh escaping.  
  
He supposes he can – one last favour to a man who owes him far too many; to whom he himself owes far too many. Ah, the nature of friendship – so blissful, so joyful, but full of the possibilities of peril – but it is exactly like the nature of humanity, he thinks, to want, desperately, things which can only end in sorrow, things which can destroy him as much as they can fulfil him.  
  
Friendship. Family. Acceptance. Love.  
  
“As you wish – though I warn you that you may regret not having asked for something better as a last favour,” he reminds Nicolas, his tone a lot more light-hearted. “A loan of a precious object would be more in keeping with the circumstances, don’t you think?”  
  
There is more laughter – laughter interrupted by a flash of fire and a trill of music; Fawkes, doing his best hummingbird impression, settles down on Albus’ shoulder, head-butting him gently. He is glorious, in the full flow of his current cycle, feathers gleaming red and gold, and his dark eyes, so knowing and so wise, fix on Nicolas with a steady, unblinking gaze. It is unnerving – it has always been unnerving – and he cannot quite bring himself to meet it.  
  
“‘e is still with you?” Nicolas asks instead, preferring to admire the way the phoenix’s claws are carefully held above Albus’ shoulder, holding tight enough to perch but not to pierce – care, indeed. He fails to keep the surprise out of his voice – ah, but what was the point? What would it matter now who he offended or what he dug up?  
  
Skeletons there may be – skeletons there were, as he knew well – but shortly he would be joining them, so what should he care?  
  
(So many things, that is the answer; so many reasons and so many years.)  
  
“He is,” Albus confirms, and if he is offended, he does not show it. His face remains the same, almost serene; there is no catch in his voice, no tightening of his jaw – Nicolas has known him long enough to know the signs, has known him well enough to spot them, however minute they may be when they come. “Though he leaves occasionally – I do not know where to.”  
  
The first lie that evening, and it hangs there, solid, between them, almost tangible. It throbs and it aches, and Nicolas smiles softly.  
  
“Désolé,” he murmurs, shifting his head on the pillow. “It is only that I did not think ‘e would stay – I did not expect ‘im to become so attached to you. It is not in their nature.”  
  
Phoenixes are loyal, beyond loyal almost: any they befriend, bond with, however one chooses to call it, is theirs. A hatch-mate, a hunting-mate, a flying-mate; someone to protect even beyond death, beyond, shall we say, imprisonment.  
  
Fawkes should not have gone to him, should not have gone with him – not willingly at least. Loyalty should never have been a gift Albus received from Fawkes, not after the hammer which sentenced his master (his friend, his companion) had been wielded – in essence, in every way which mattered – by Albus.  
  
Yet, he had, and wasn’t that curious?  
  
(To Nicolas, of course, it was not curious at all – it was as plain as daylight the truth of the matter. What was curious was how it had happened that no one else had caught onto it. If there ever was a feat of Albus Dumbledore’s which had to be named the greatest, surely, surely, duping an entire country, an entire continent’s worth of specialists, of journalists and gossips and experts, had to be it.  
  
Nicolas would give an arm and a leg to know how it had been done – would have, at any rate. There was little point in it now; soon Albus could take it all if he wanted.)  
  
Albus says nothing, and Nicolas wonders if he is thinking of him now, of Fawkes’ best friend, of a single cell in a tall, dark tower, or perhaps of other, sweeter memories, older memories, treasured all these years, the pain and the loneliness they bring a fair price to pay for the content they have. Perhaps he is remembering moments shared: a smile, a laugh, something more, something less.  
  
He does not ask, and Albus does not say – this is not the time for Albus to speak of it and he suspects he is not the person who deserves such a confession.  
  
His hands are shaking now, ever so slightly, the Elixir beginning to wear off – yesterday’s dose, the last of it he owned, and he drank it with a toast to God and his fingers interlaced with Perenelle’s – and, morbid though it is, he cannot help but be curious about how exactly he will die.  
  
Will he simply crumble, like old parchment, into a shiver of dust on the blankets, nothing left to say he was ever alive save for his name in ink? Will he wilt, a flower out of water for too long, turning old and decayed and dead under the sun’s glare? Will he simply die, fading out of the world with no fanfare, no visible sign?  
  
Somehow, the last is the one which scares him the most.  
  
When he opens his eyes, Albus is watching him, his expression impassive.  
  
“He knew about the stone,” Albus tells him, his voice quiet, but it is all the worse for that. Nicolas would rather he shouted, yelled, roared his rage, as Perenelle did, as she had done countless times over the centuries – but small mercies are too merciful for him, even now. “He came for it, and he knew where it was, where it would be and when it was to be moved.”  
  
_How_ is the unspoken question, the word which is yet so obvious – almost glimmering in both their minds. Albus does not mention it, though, and Nicolas does not wait for it. It is hardly the interesting question – that is _why_.  
  
_Why_. It is always the question, always the important one, the missing piece to the puzzle.  
  
Just like the why of Fawkes’ allegiance, of Albus Dumbledore’s famous victory and not as famous reluctance, it is question which does not truly have an answer – not a single one, at least, and one which is far more complicated than it appears.  
  
It is also an answer he will not give. He cannot bear to say it, to hear those words slip from his mouth, to feel what he had felt before when the truth of it all had sunk into him, to see the understanding in his friend’s eyes, coupled with the disappointment lurking just behind.  
  
It is one thing to be a foolish youth; it is quite another to be a foolish old man, and death has not yet taken his pride from him.  
  
His hands smooth down the blankets over his stomach, and his breath falters in his lungs. There is not long left; the last grain of sand hovers over the edge of the precipice.  
  
“Excusez-moi, mon ami,” he whispers, the words carrying in the small room. “I think per’aps you know already, and if you do not, you will know in time – it is all ‘ere, non? All my secrets, all my life: it is all ‘ere. I only ask that you do not judge me too ‘arshly; I ‘ave paid for my mistakes, in my own way.”  
  
He coughs; the sound is ragged, and he feels it tear at his throat.  
  
“I do not judge you,” Albus responds quietly, and there is a conviction in his voice, an unnatural firmness which brings him to tears. “I have never judged you – it is not my place.”  
  
In his lethargy, he can still muster up a smile – it is weak and watery, and he knows it is truly little more than a twitch of lips, but he does it nonetheless. The words ‘thank you’ form on his tongue but die – oh, how appropriate – before they can be uttered; he does not bother to try again.  
  
“It is the irony, that this is how I should die,” he murmurs – and though the words are mostly to himself, he is aware that Albus is there, listening intently to every word, and so he chooses them carefully, places them just so. “Immortality has slain me, my friend, and handed me over to death. It is not the way it is in the stories – not the way anyone would believe.”  
  
On Albus’ shoulder, Fawkes shuffles his wings and coos; a drooping, melancholy sound which rings in the air, haunting and solemn. The death knell, Nicolas thinks, his death knell, and he is not so worried, nor so scared or suddenly undecided as he thought he might be.  
  
Gesturing for Albus to come closer (he supposes that if he is to die he should do it properly and for that someone must be beside him to hold his hand, as he did for his father in turn), he closes his eyes softly; the light hurts a little, as though he has spent too many hours reading by candlelight, squinting at cramped, shoddy handwriting.  
  
“It is a shame,” he says, thinking almost more than he ever has done to remember the English words – it is late, too late, and he is so very tired… “That we could never have met. I should have liked that… what a group we would have been. What we would have said! What we would have done!”  
  
A weight presses down by his side, and he feels a warm wing brush against his arm. Fawkes is next to him, and for some reason, the thought of it almost makes him cry.  
  
Eh bien, it is not most people who die with a phoenix at their bedside, he thinks, and dignity is a concept in which he has long lost belief.  
  
“Tell me, Albus,” he grips his friend’s hand – wrinkled, leathery – in his own, waiting, waiting for his strength to start failing, to feel it ebb out of him like the sea on the shore, the moon summoning it back, relentless in her command. “What was he like?”  
  
He does not know who he is asking about; he does not know if it matters, truly.  
  
“Beautiful,” Albus whispers, and there, there is the hitch in his voice, seconds before he goes. “And brilliant, and so very terrible in the end.”  
  
“En vérité,” he breathes. “All the best things are.”


	2. quand l’étérnité dit rien.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1991: je demande

quand l’étérnité dit rien.  

The walk is pleasant: the air is full of the perfume of lavender, of roses and pansies, spread around the paths in bursts of purple and pink – bright and garish and all the better for it, he thinks. Their heads duck in the breeze made as the two of them go past, bobbing and weaving like hens at corn, and here and there petals are plucked off their stalks by the wind, squeezed and buffeted by heels and cloaks.

It is a beautiful day: summer is at its height, the sun bearing down and the countryside awash with colour and sound and life – alas, then, he thinks, that it is always the most beautiful days which must bear the heaviest burdens.

More than any other, summer is a season which saps away at him, bit by bit, until he longs for the crisp, coolness of winter, his refuge from memories which still stir his soul.

“Ah, it is always on days like this when I revel in past stupidities, my friend,” Nicolas remarks lightly, and he cannot say for sure if the smile is amused or grave – both, perhaps. “La folie de la jeunesse, non?”

“You must tell me,” Albus replies after a moment’s pause – long, comfortable, broken only by a butterfly fluttering past, brown and yellow and orange. “When one has eternal youth, does one also have eternal folly? Or does that fade with age?”

Nicolas simply laughs, hands clasped in front of him, looking for all the world like a priest on his day off: sombre in black and cream, plain and dreary amongst all the colour.

“Mon ami, if I knew that it faded, would that not be folly in its turn?” he asks, a parry to a previous spar, light and playing. It is at times like this, times of serenity and beauty, when the world does not need a guardian for a while, that their friendship flourishes.

(It did well enough under despair, under heartbreak and confusion and loneliness, but neither of them speaks of it. They have their secrets, and they keep them well.)

“We do not grow wiser with age, only more certain of where our mistakes lie,” Nicolas continues, brown hair blowing over his face with the breeze.

“I must disagree,” Albus’ tone is jovial, but his eyes rest on a blackbird wheeling in the sky above, fixed and steady. “I find that I only grow more uncertain of the past with age.”

“Ah, but le passé, it is a demon,” Nicolas’ voice is quieter, a note of compassion laced inside it – this is all the comfort he can give, for this is not a subject he can speak on, nor one he wishes to delve into. Love is a man’s private property, especially once it is tainted by grief. “It haunts us all, in our turn.”

(There is a look, a way of living when in love that he has learned to spot over the years – on that, at least, he has never yet been wrong.)

They stop on the hilltop, looking down over the patchwork fields and tiny, distant spires and tiled roofs which make up so much of the countryside: quaint and old and so full of charm and good humour. In the distance, a herd of sheep graze, and there is the miniature figure of a farmer tramping through his land, staff in hand. Above it all, the sun is gleaming, cotton-wool clouds drifting lazily across the sky, almost blinding, and small, dark shapes against the blue give away the birds as they swoop and soar, snatches of song breaking through like faint, garbled radio transmissions.

There is peace here, a real peace, so much so that it is hard to believe something might be stirring – dark and powerful and wicked – not close, but close enough. Close enough that there is a threat, unseen and unspoken, lingering, always lingering…

“Albus,” Nicolas starts suddenly, watching a stallion tossing his name in a nearby field, cantering around his paddock, white star on his forehead winking in the sun. “There is something I must ask of you – a favour.”

There is no movement out of the corner of his eye; Albus’ expression does not change, not a muscle. Nicolas is not sure whether he should be grateful that this request seems half-expected, while it is helpful, there is something deeply unsettling about it.

(He has been the master, the teacher, the learned one for so long that he has forgotten what it is like to be the student, and how it bites at him!)

“Of course – if I can assist, I will,” Albus agrees readily, though he does not smile as perhaps normally he would.

He feels his hands brush over his coat, an absent gesture, the material of it soft and supple under his fingers, and he can only wonder how he is going to pull off this miracle of all miracles. There is no guidance offered now, no counsel he can hear beforehand, and there will be no appeal if it fails.

In some ways, it is a less a question and more a plea – but pride, pride alone refuses that logic.

“You ‘ave ‘eard the rumours?” he says, keeping his voice even, his tone neutral. He will not panic, will not be seen to be anxious, not in front of a man who is a sixth his age.

“Oh yes,” Albus is grave, solemn now. “Unicorns attacked in forests in Albania – the vampires say it is not them, the Erklings seem too terrified to go near the bodies of those slain. Muggles report sounds of a voice through the trees, though when the Ministry sends out forces to find the truth of them, and they find nothing. Oh yes, I have heard – and I admit it worries me greatly.”

“Bon, bon,” Nicolas mutters to himself. It must help him, surely, if Albus Dumbledore is concerned? If he knows, then he must understand the risk, the possibilities… “Oui, I agree, it is most concerning.”

(It is at times like this he wishes Perenelle were with him, that she could whisper the words he needs into his ear, breathy and sly as always – even that she could beg instead of him.

Wicked woman, she always has been so marvellous in her speech, tricking and twisting her opponents, so that even Albus can only avert his eyes, take a steadying breath and give in.

Dear god, he loves her so, his own belle dame sans merci.)

No, he is alone in this, in the truth of his folly and the foolishness which preceded it – there is no room for anyone else. He must – what is the phrase in English? – jump into the dragon’s lair.

“I am worried for the Stone,” he says it bluntly, quickly, quietly, and then it is there, hanging in the air between them, and there is no way to take it back.

Silence, then, and he knows he does not need to say more, does not need, truly, to explain what the favour is, what he is really asking. As for why, that dangerous little thing, he will not say it – cannot say it, perhaps – and so that is of no matter; he is certain that that secret, sweet and stupid, is still firmly protected.

It must be, and it must remain so; he does not want to witness the pain and the horror which would follow its revelation.

Selfish, oui, but selfishness, he has found, is a necessary ingredient of immortality.

“You cannot be serious, Nicolas,” Albus’ voice is quiet, but strong, and a note of disbelief – genuine, he thinks, and it is all the more painful for that – rings through it. “While I cannot pretend I do not share your worry, you cannot honestly have thought that that is the solution.”

“There is nowhere else,” Nicolas responds, sounding feeble even to his own ears. His argument, he knows now, is paper-thin (he had known before, truthfully, but it had seemed the only one he could give) and about to rip in two. “There is no one else.”

And is that not the other side to immortality: the burgeoning loneliness which accompanies it, as slowly you watch your family, your friends wither and fade before you, you who remain young and hale, and then your world entire shrink even as another – better, younger, more radical – grows in its place.

He has few friends, reclusive celebrity that he is, and even fewer that he would trust with this.

It is sad, truly, a separation from society Albus can sympathise with, understand deeply in a way so few others have, but he suspects that empathy will not be coming now. After all, it is a strange man who manages to have empathy for another who threatens his territory, those he protects and loves  – however intangible the threat.

(They are strange men, they know this and they revel in it, use it to cloak the parts of themselves society cannot handle, but they are not so strange as that.)

“Surely,” Albus’ voice is tinged with a strain of arrogance he has not heard in years, incredulous and pompous as it delivers its message of absurdity; idly, he wonders if it ever left him, or simply had been so well hidden it had been all but forgotten about.

He could ask; he thinks perhaps not. Another day, maybe, when things are less tense, less serious, when he can tease his friend properly about the slip.

“Surely,” Albus repeats. “You can think of a better place for it than there? A better way to keep it safe than that? There are students there, Nicolas, students who will be in danger if rumours should surface – if, indeed, what we fear comes to pass. You must, I beg you, find another way.”

He closes his eyes, wills himself not to think of the children – though the world is a child to him now – young and innocent, staring around with wide eyes at dreams made real, and pretends that he cannot hear the passion, the faint anger in his friend’s voice. The words do not matter; they cannot matter, not where this is concerned.

If it were Beauxbatons in Hogwarts’ place…

(It would still be the same question, his mind whispers to him. The same question, with the same answer desired.)

“Ah, mon ami, I am being selfish, I know,” he murmurs. “But in this I must be. You know of the Stone – you know what it could do if it fell into the wrong hands, what it could give the wrong person. With the rumours…”

He trails off delicately and shrugs, a two-shouldered Gallic thing; simple and elegant and yet so very expressive.

When he glances sideways, Albus is watching him, shrewd and calculating and such a bright blue. He looks away first; he does not think Albus would try to see into his mind, to pull out those memories he keeps hidden, but nonetheless he fears something would leak out, something would show through – and that, non, he will not have that.

“Besides,” he says lightly, his fingers sticking together slightly – interlocked with sweat from the heat or the nerves, or both, warm and drying even as it appears. “I would think that having defeated a Dark Lord already, you would be sufficient threat to most treasure-hunters, non? Unless Grindelwald surrendering in exchange for his life is not such a lie.”

The look Albus flashes him is exasperated, amused and pained all at once – though the pain lingers beyond the others, left behind when he glances away again. Thankfully, though, he does not remark on it, and the jibe – unintended, but still spiked – passes through without a hit.

“Harry Potter will be arriving at Hogwarts this year,” Albus remarks instead, easily – as though for all the world it is a thought that has just occurred to him. Nicolas knows better; he knows why Harry Potter, of all the students heading to school this year, has been singled out.

(For a moment, almost, he starts to wonder… and then he stops.)

They pause, two men – two great men, two lonely men – at the top of the hill in the south of France, watching as down below, a farmer stands at the edge of a field, surveying his crop, patchwork sheepdog at his heels. Ah, they think, to have such a simple life; not easy, but simpler.

(They both know they would be bored. They both know life is only ever as simple as they make it, and that they relish the complications.)

“I must ask one thing, though,” Albus murmurs, the words almost lost on the wind as it dances away from them, tugging at their hair and cloaks. There is something melancholy in his tone, something heavy, hinting at a guilt long carried, and for a moment Nicolas is reminded how young his friend really is, silver beard and age notwithstanding. “How do you know to trust me with the Stone? It would hardly be difficult to take it once you have entrusted it to me.”

Nicolas smiles – ah, for once, for the first time in a long time, they will talk honestly, will they? It is a trait they both avoid as much as possible; long lives do not tend to lead to truthfulness in all cases.

In most cases, for them – but what does honesty mean when they are clever enough to know enough, to glean enough from the snippets given and heard?

“I should think, mon ami, that if you wanted to be immortal, you would be by now,” he says softly, his smile fading into something softer and more understanding.

(He does not know of a story, of a misbegotten youth and plans for just that prize, though by different means – but that is all for the best, Albus thinks, and he does not object any further.)

You are not him, Nicolas thinks beside him – passionately, desperately, guiltily – but he does not know how to say it.


	3. quand l’histoire est née.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1981: je suis coupable

quand l’histoire est née.  
  
It is half past nine in the evening – a heavy time, now, a time which is solely for musings, reflections on what has been, on what could have been, on what could still be. Oh, but it is strange and sad how things change, Nicolas thinks, watching as the light, orange and warm, catches a scattering of drops in the glass, making them glitter.   
  
(It is strange and sad, oui, but it is also comforting in a way he has long since forgotten to find odd. One would think that after so many years, he would grow bored of wondering, tired of thinking endlessly on life and what it means, what it gives and takes.   
  
He has not, though, and he knows now that he will not. Life remains as much of a mystery to him as it always has been, and he finds a perverse sort of pleasure in that.)   
  
“It is curious,” Albus comments idly, a matching glass in his own hand, half full with a burnt orange liquor, a pair of ice cubes floating around the top of it. “How things which end suddenly never seem as complete as those which fade.”   
  
Albus’ hair is white – eh bien, near enough – and his robes are a sombre midnight blue, looking ink-black in the dimmed lighting. Almost, in this light, now, he looks like he could be Merlin; Nicolas has never quite felt like more a fraud in his young skin, with his age… ah, only counted for amusement now.   
  
After all, the papers must have something to talk about, no?   
  
Nicolas smiles, wry and small, “Things are always that way – never ‘ow you think it will be. It is frustrating, bien sûr; a trick of the mind.”   
  
“And in believing that we have rid ourselves of them, we trick ourselves anew,” Albus sighs. “Circles, of course; so very vexing to the philosophical mind.”   
  
For a few moments, there is silence, filled only by the faint whirring of a spindly, silver thing which sits on the end of the mantelpiece, half a beat out of time with the cuckoo clock next to it: carved delicately, precisely, into a stag mid-leap, larks and ivy winding around one side, wings outstretched. A masterpiece, certainly, from the mahogany body to the tiny bronze numbers on the clock-face; spiralling out from the centre, the latticed second hand ticking round the face with solemn, unerring dependability.   
  
“Magic, she is the same,” Nicolas breaks it, though his voice is almost swallowed by the crackling of the fire, a shower of sparks, red and gold, springing out and fizzing against the grate. “Light and dark, always chasing each other.”   
  
“Is it really, though?” Albus questions, and while the words are calm, the tone hints at something bitter underneath. “After all, if it were that easy to separate them, hordes of scholars would have very little to do, and Dark Lords would be much easier to stop.”   
  
Nicolas laughs, brief and loud in the room; it is, he suspects, the first genuine emotion, the first happy emotion this room has heard in months, years perhaps.   
  
It is discordant, but the jarring of it is encouraging; he half-wants to do it again, to laugh longer and harder if only to avoid the gloom which still persists.   
  
(He does not blame Albus, of course not, but as age drags on tragedies seem less and less, becoming commonplace, everyday things, and he has to remember that they were people with families and friends, people who were loved; and then he must remind himself that there are many who survive these things, who live on.   
  
Tragedy hardens and weakens the heart; a true double-edged sword.)   
  
“Oui, oui, it would be much simpler,” he agrees. “But people are never one or the other, and magic is not people, but within people.”   
  
“On that,” Albus’ tone is milder now, and laughter’s ghost rests on his shoulder, it seems, tugging some pinch of amusement out from under the sorrow. “We both agree, my friend, though were it another day I would no doubt challenge you on that point as well.”   
  
“Another day, then,” Nicolas proposes, settling back into his chair with a smile, setting his glass down on the table to one side, a single layer of liquid left in the bottom, throwing yellow-tinted shadows over his hand. “When we ‘ave time to debate it properly, and nothing to distract us from the philosophy of it.”   
  
(Seven days, Albus thinks to himself, it has been seven days and here he sits, making plans for philosophical debates on subjects he cannot possibly find anything to add to.   
  
He should be mourning. He needs to be mourning.   
  
He certainly needs to be avoiding spending endless hours at his desk writing letters which will never be sent – should never be sent – and will never be replied to.)   
  
“Perhaps over Christmas?” he suggests, instead of changing his mind, declining the offer. Eleven years before this last month: eleven years of worry and fear and more deaths than he could count, deaths he had hoped to prevent.   
  
France will be different, clean and free from memories of the dead when they were young, and the fleeting, whispering thoughts that maybe he could have done more, should have done more.   
  
It will be nice, he thinks, to not be needed any more.   
  
“A month until then,” Nicolas muses. “Mon Dieu, ‘ow time flies– only yesterday it was autumn, and the day before that summer… but then, ‘ow else can it be when I am certain that a few months ago it was the last century?”   
  
“Good lord,” Albus comments, amused, draining the last from his own glass, a tiny shard of ice clattering as it falls to the bottom. “I should hope it was longer than a few months – I was young then, and I am certainly not young anymore.”   
  
“Ah oui, young and so very idealistic,” Nicolas smiles fondly, looking far too paternal for a man who appears younger than his companion. “Perenelle adored you for it – ‘er little English revolutionary.”   
  
There is a quick close of eyes, a moment’s silence, and then the bottle is proffered, conversation halting.   
  
(He had not thought it would dig so deep, this long past, but perhaps, perhaps it has been a reminder? Even if the mantras and methods are different, at heart the movements remain the same.)   
  
He watches as the glasses are filled, orange liquid sloshing out of the bottle in a tumultuous, rolling wave of sorts, sinking into the glasses until they are three fingers deep.   
  
“Merci, mon ami,” he says quietly, because how else does he say désolé for a thing which has never quite been mentioned? To speak on guesses alone is foolish – and now is not the time for foolishness, for such brazen inquisitiveness.   
  
Perhaps later, once the war has truly ended and the cloud has lifted.   
  
Outside the window, snow is falling: a thick, white curtain of it, tumbling to the ground quickly, so much so that the sky looks almost white with specks of black, the only hint of the stars the occasional glitter here or there.   
  
Nicolas imagines the grounds and castle will look beautiful tomorrow, snow laid along every branch and windowsill, sprinkled over every tree-top and bush; a long, unspoiled white blanket stretching all the way from the castle doors to the edge of the forest, except for perhaps a trail of hoof-prints or paw-prints dotting across, leftover from twilight-hour excursions.   
  
Fantastical, almost, as though a Christmas card had come to life.   
  
True winter arriving at last for Scotland, hiding every red-and-brown dappled leaf, every strand of darkening grass, and perhaps putting the memories out of mind also?   
  
“The child survived, did he not?” Nicolas surprises even himself by speaking of it – the thing he had promised himself not to mention. Alas, though, that wisdom does not always prevail.   
  
The mood in the room shudders, wriggling that little bit closer to the brink, but does not fall just yet.   
  
“A miracle,” Albus confirms it, though there is something vague, something heavy in his tone, and Nicolas feels guilt start to bubble in his stomach, curdling slowly.   
  
It has been too long to say anything, too long to do anything – all that would happen now is destruction, nothing more. He does not even know anything of any use; ah, there is no hope for redemption from this, but then, at times, he wonders if it is even necessary.   
  
The world has a way of fixing mistakes, of extracting payment for the wrongs it has been done.   
  
“God is good,” Nicolas murmurs in response, and, as always, the gold cross around his neck seems to weigh a little heavier when he says it, the chain cut a little tighter. “Le pauvre… though to orphan a boy as his last act is almost a fall in style for Voldemort, non?”   
  
He expects… well, a response, but all he gets is silence – Albus is looking thoughtful, brow furrowed and expression terse, dark now in the shadows, hollowing out the bones of his face so he appears already like a corpse.   
  
A flash of light, a ball of fire licking and growing even as it hangs in mid-air for a split second, and Fawkes appears, giving a happy, loud trill to announce his return. Landing delicately on the armrest, he butts his head gently against Albus’ shoulder and coos, gently, ruffling his feathers.   
  
This time, he is young, his cycle starting again, and his tail is only just beginning to grow down and down to its full length, the golden threads in his feathers peeking through the crimson and last remains of the orange, downy fluff he had as a chick. His eyes are the same, though, and they fix Nicolas with the blank, black gaze he has come to recognise so well, and the trickle of unease down his spine returns, ever the constant follower.   
  
Absently, Albus runs the back of his hand along Fawkes’ feathers, receiving a lazy, low warble in return.   
  
“I do not believe Voldemort is gone,” he says then, quietly, but the conviction in his voice is deceptively firm.   
  
Nicolas takes a mouthful of brandy, feeling it slip down his throat, warm from the air in the room, and does not respond.   
  
(He wants to – wants to say, no, no, he is not. Not someone like him, with his wants and desires and aims; he will never be completely gone – but he does not. They stick in his mouth and he swallows them down.)   
  
“It will be my third war,” Albus adds, and there is conviction no longer in his voice but something softer, something tired and bitter and almost sad. It stings and weeps a little, and so the conversation turns.   
  
“Mon ami, it is three too many,” Nicolas replies gently. “Wars are always too many, no matter ‘ow many they are; it is in their nature. They are cruel and unforgiving mistresses – no one wins, and far too many people lose. I am sorry.”   
  
“You must forgive me if I sound callous, but it is not the war itself which disturbs me so,” Albus admits, the shame in his voice tangible. It hangs, an ugly weight, between them, but Nicolas has no interest in knocking it down – he is too old to misunderstand, too old to claim he does not know what his friend means. “Rather more that I will be asked to lead it again, that I must lead it again, if only because there is no one else – and, truthfully, I am getting too old for this.”   
  
He gives a small, cynical smile and cannot quite help the stirring of pity in his chest – but there is no way he can help, and to help now, when he has let countless wars slip by, countless men and women and children die, to preserve his secrecy, his anonymity as best he can… ah, he is a coward and he admits it freely.   
  
The problem, he thinks, is that Albus is not, but wishes he were.   
  
“There is nothing to forgive,” he tells him, decisive for once. “Feelings are not to be judged, they merely are.”   
  
A smile flickers on Albus’ face – tiny, genuine, grateful – and Nicolas feels like the master again, instructing his pupil. He will enjoy it, while it lasts, for with Albus, with all his friends, it never lasts long; both a blessing and a curse.   
  
“There was a Dark witch in France, a hundred years after I succeeded with the Stone,” Nicolas recalls – he can no longer picture her face, or remember the names of the dead, the places she destroyed, or the spells she invented; memory, such as it is, is excellent, extended, but not in itself immortal. “She laid waste to whole families, taking what peace we had built slowly, so carefully, and tearing it apart. She set brother on brother, clan against clan; it was chaos.   
  
“I was immortal. I would ‘ave faced little harm from her, little threat, but I stayed in my house, away from it all, safe, and I did nothing. I thought it was clever, if not right. For years I ‘ave wondered if I should ‘ave been braver, cleverer, ‘elped in some way – I ‘ave regretted it, and it does not shame me to admit it.  
  
“But you… ‘ere, you ‘ave ‘elped – you saved people. Do not think on what you did not, the people you did not save, because per’aps you could not save them. Per’aps they were not meant to be saved; we do not know God’s plan, only what we must do within it.”   
  
It is more than he has said in a long time; it is certainly more honest, more open than he has been in a long time, and it does not sit well with him, honesty and his secretive, shadowy past.   
  
He is a clever man, a successful man, a famous man – though that part he hates – but is he a good man?   
  
There, then, history divides.   
  
Nicolas glances away – Albus’ gaze is a little too knowing and too understanding and too bright in the firelight; he seems to match Fawkes in intuition in that moment, and it is unnerving and embarrassing in equal measure.   
  
On the mantelpiece, the minute hand ticks over to twelve and the cuckoo – a tiny china cuckoo in blue and white – springs out of the door nestled in the top of the clock, and Fawkes’ squawk, indignant and strangely flustered, rings over the sound of the cuckoo’s call, steadily ringing once, twice, all the way up to ten.   
  
Once it is finished, Fawkes, on the armchair, shakes his head and turns his attention to his feathers, lowering his beak to start rearranging them, a patch of fluff dropping to the floor, peach in the firelight.   
  
“My apologies, but I am behind on my correspondence,” Albus says, and if anything about it is abrupt, it goes entirely unnoticed – the olive branch, so to speak, is offered and Nicolas will gladly accept it without delay.   
  
“I should return to London,” Nicolas murmurs in response, standing, leaving the brandy half-drunk on the table. It is perhaps a waste, but he has long since outgrown throwing back drinks with reckless abandon; life has slowed, even as time has grown slicker, faster, with each passing year.   
  
Something presses hard on his tongue when he goes to say goodbye, to remind Albus of his promise to visit over Christmastime, heavy and slick, it slips over his teeth like oil, and he tastes bile.   
  
(He says nothing. Ah, but is that not their way? To say everything, and mean nothing.)


End file.
